In order to better maintain and enhance the performance of automobiles and similar vehicles, as well as to enhance the vehicles' aesthetic appearance, it is desirable to maintain the cleanliness of the exteriors of the vehicles. Indeed, underbody washing maintenance has been shown to successfully stem the corrosive effects of road salt, sand, and dust, and thereby provide a consumer with repair cost savings over the life of his or her vehicle.
Given the expense associated with professionally cleaning their vehicles, many persons choose to clean their vehicles at home. Yet while the sides and tops of vehicles are readily accessible to persons who wish to manually clean their vehicles, the underbodies of vehicles are more difficult to reach by a person without specialized cleaning tools. Further, the types of dirt and other grime that collect along the underbodies of vehicles often are different than, and often are more difficult to remove than, the substances that collect on other parts of vehicles.
For these reasons, a series of devices have been developed for facilitating the home-cleaning of vehicles' underbodies, and a number of U.S. patents have issued in relation to such devices. A primary goal of such devices has been to provide consumers with mechanisms for cleaning their vehicles' underbodies that not only rival the cleaning efficacy of professional underbody wash systems available at local car washes and the like, but also are relatively inexpensive and easy to use. Typically reliant upon home water sources (e.g., the water provided via a garden hose outlet from a consumer's home), such known devices have become more practical with the advent of pressure washer systems enabling the consumer to generate pressures approaching or exceeding 1,000 psi, since the application of higher-pressure water is more effective at removing adhesive sediments from the underbody of a vehicle.
Among these known devices are those shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,580,726 issued on Apr. 8, 1986 to Unger; U.S. Pat. No. 4,984,746 issued on Jan. 15, 1991 to Joyal; U.S. Pat. No. 5,653,392 issued on Aug. 5, 1997 to Wells; U.S. Pat. No. 5,707,014 issued on Jan. 13, 1998 to Chan et al.; and U.S. Pat. No. 6,079,640 issued on Jun. 27, 2000 to Merrits.
Although each of the known devices disclosed in the aforementioned patents can be used for the purpose of underbody cleaning, each of these devices has various disadvantages that limit the devices' efficacy. With respect to the device shown in Unger, a housing is supported upon a pair of castor wheels at opposite ends (along the sides) of the housing. The housing includes two nozzles, also positioned proximate the opposite ends of the housing, for spraying fluid upward toward a vehicle underbody. Because the housing employs a large, rectangular-shaped body, significant amounts of material must be used to form the housing. Further, because the housing employs a large amount of material, it is heavier than it might otherwise be, which can make it more difficult for a user to move or turn the housing.
Further, the use of two castor wheels makes it possible for the housing to wobble (e.g., in a front-to-back or back-to-front manner). Although this wobbling capability allows tipping of the housing fore and aft, it reduces the stability of the housing and increases the difficulty of controlling the exact direction of fluid squirted out of nozzles. This difficulty is exacerbated by the fact that the handle is flexibly coupled to the housing by way of a flexible hose portion, rather than coupled in a fixed manner. Finally, it is unclear from Unger how the two nozzles shown in that patent can be appropriately configured to maximize cleaning effectiveness of the device.
As for Joyal, while that patent discloses embodiments of underbody washing mechanisms that have T-shaped or triangularly shaped bodies with three wheels, where at least one of the wheels is a castor wheel, at least one or two of the wheels of each of the embodiments are wheels that are controllably steered by an operator by way of a handle of the respective device. Thus, while the devices in Joyal are more stable than the wobbling housing shown in Unger, the use of wheels that are controlled in their steering orientation makes the devices in Joyal complicated both in terms of operation and manufacture. In particular, in terms of operating the devices in Joyal, the use of the controllably steered wheels would appear to prevent side-to-side movement that is available with the devices in Unger. Further, to the extent that the devices in Joyal not only provide for controllably steered wheels but also link movement of the spray nozzles to movement of the steered wheels, the devices are even more complicated to operate.
Additionally, while the T-shaped embodiment shown in Joyal employs three nozzles or rotary caps (each having multiple orifices) along a central axis of the T-shaped body, this axis is oriented in a front-to-back manner as opposed to being oriented in a side-to-side manner as are the nozzles on the housing shown by Unger. Consequently, movement of the T-shaped body of Joyal underneath a car does not expose as great of an area of the underbody of the car to fluid as the device of Unger. Additionally, to the extent that the design employs the rotary caps, the design is rather complicated and lacking in robustness. As for the additional, triangular-shaped embodiment shown in Joyal, that device appears to only include a single nozzle or rotary cap, and consequently also is lacking in terms of the area of the underbody that it cleans, its complexity, and its robustness. Further, because the housings of the devices shown in Joyal are relatively large, the housings again utilize a large amount of material that can further increase the expense of manufacturing these devices.
With respect to devices shown in Wells and Chan et al., each of these devices employs a linear base having two fixed wheels spaced on opposite ends of the base and having multiple orifices/holes spaced between the wheels in a side-to-side manner. Although, in contrast to the devices in Joyal and similar to the device in Unger, the devices in Wells and Chan et al. are able to direct fluid along a wide area as the linear base is moved underneath an automobile, the use of fixed wheels along the sides of the linear base prevents easy side-to-side movement underneath the automobile. Additional fixed wheels shown in Chan et al. that are coupled to a handle extending rearward from the linear base further compound this problem. Additionally, it is not clear from these patents that an efficient spray pattern can be achieved given the particular nozzle arrangements that are employed. Further, the device shown in Chan et al. in particular requires a large number of parts so that it can perform a variety of cleaning functions, and consequently is relatively expensive to manufacture.
As for the device shown in Merrits, this device does not include a wheeled base resting along the ground but rather employs a series of orifices along an end portion of the handle that is supported by the operator. As in the case of one of the devices shown in Joyal, these orifices are positioned along the handle from front-to-back rather than in a side-to-side orientation, and consequently, as in the case of Joyal, the amount of area impacted by cleaning fluid is undesirably limited. Further, because a base is not used, it is difficult for an operator to control the direction of fluid emanating from the nozzles.
Given these limitations associated with the prior art, it would be advantageous if a new, improved device for cleaning the underbodies of automobiles and similar vehicles could be developed. In particular, it would be advantageous if such a device was easily maneuverable in all directions by an operator, including not only frontward and backward, but also sideways movements. It would further be advantageous if such a device was highly stable, particularly in terms of the portion of the device from which fluid emanated, thereby allowing an operator to more easily and consistently clean the underbody of a vehicle. It would additionally be advantageous if the device was capable of directing fluid at a wide area under a vehicle in an efficient manner, so that a large vehicle underbody could be exposed relatively rapidly to fluid in a manner that made efficient use of water resources. It further would be advantageous if the device was inexpensive to manufacture and did not require a large number of parts and/or a large amount of manufacturing material. Additionally, it would be advantageous if such a device more effectively distributed or applied water (and/or other cleaning solutions) on the underbodies of vehicles than conventional devices. Further, it would be advantageous if such a device could utilize water sources conventionally available at consumers' homes, such as the tap for a garden hose, and advantageous if such a device was relatively simple to use.